Welcome to Environment and Health App

The Environment and Health App is to help users to analyze and visualize data about environment and health. It can be used to do horizontal analyses among different countries, states and cities. You can also use it to do time series analyses.

In terms of dataset, users can analyze Air Quality Index (AQI) and global temperature data.

Glossary


AQI: An air quality index (AQI) is a number used by government agencies to communicate to the public how polluted the air currently is or how polluted it is forecast to become.

AQI levels of Health concern: The purpose of the AQI is to help you understand what local air quality means to your health. To make it easier to understand, the AQI is divided into six categories. Each category corresponds to a different level of health concern.

CBSA: The term Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA) refers collectively to both metropolitan statistical areas and micropolitan areas.

Dataset Overview

Air Quality Index Dataset

  • Annual AQI dataset contains annual AQI information from 2000 to 2017 by Core Based Statistical Area (CBSA).

  • The U.S. pollution dataset contains four major pollutants (Nitrogen Dioxide, Sulphur Dioxide, Carbon Monoxide and Ozone) AQI data for every day from 2000-2016. All the data is scraped from the database of U.S. EPA

  • AirQualityTracking dataset contains (Yiquan)

Global temperature datasets

Notes: There are some missing values in the following datasets, which leads to the incompleteness of the temperature map in some year.

  • Global Temperature contains global land average temperature from 1750-2015. Note: there are some missing values in this dataset.

  • Global Land Temperature by Country dataset contains global land average temperature from 11/1743-09/2015.

  • Global Land Temperature by State dataset contains global land average temperature from 11/1743-09/2015.

Guide to App

Air Quality Index

AQI Plot

Analysis selection - Boxplot of AQI:

This boxplot can show you how AQI distributed from 2000-2017. You can use the notches on the boxplots to analyze whether there is strong evidence (95% confidence) that their medians differ, whether the median changed much during specific time period and whether the distribution approximate to normal distribution or it was skewed.

  • Inputs Selection:
    Boxplot Inputs Selection

    Boxplot Inputs Selection

You can use the Year slider change the time period. We set the default value at 2000-2017 (the longest time period for Annual AQI dataset).

Select the CBSA you are interested and then red spots on the boxplots can tell you how the air quality in that area was compared to other CBSAs in each year (Above median or below median). The default value of CBSA is Providence.

  • Boxplot:

Boxplot of AQI

Boxplot of AQI

Using the default value of each selection, the boxplots display as above.

Analysis selection - Health Concern by AQI:

You can use the Health Concern Plot analyze the trend of percentage of each health concern level during a specific time period and compare the percentage among CBSAs.

  • Inputs Selection:

Health Concern Plot Inputs Seletion

Health Concern Plot Inputs Seletion

Choose year period, CBSA and Health Concern Levels you want to analyze. You can select multiple CBSAs and Health Concern Levels to do comparison analyses. The picture above show you the default values of each selection.

Plot Selection:

For users who want to do comparison during a relatively long time period, the better choice is to select line plot and analyze the trend.

For users who want to do comparison only in one or a few years, select bar plot here. For example, if users want to compare the percentage of health concern levels between diffrent CBSAs only in a specific year (2008), choose bar plot and the graph will display properly.

  • Health Concern Plot:


Health Concern Line Plot

Health Concern Line Plot


Health Concern Bar Plot #### Pollutant AQI Trend

You can use these time series plots to analyze the trend of AQI by pollutant.

  • Inputs Selection

You can select multiple inputs for cities and pollutants to do comparison. Use the Year slider to choose the time period (Default value is 2000-2016).


Health Concern Bar Plot

Cluster(Yiquan)

Map

Air Quality Map (Yiquan)

Temperature Map

  • Inputs Selection


Health Concern Bar Plot


Use the two datasets analyze temperature by countries or states.

Note: there are some missing values for some countries or states which caused the incompleteness of the map in specific year.

When the default value for temperature variation is false, the map will show the temperature in specific year according to the Year input.


Temperature Map by Country

Temperature Map by Country


Temperature Map by State

Temperature Map by State

When you choose true for temperature variation, you can then analyze how temperature changed during the time period you select through the Year for Temperature Variation slider.


Temperature Variation Map by Country

Temperature Variation Map by Country

Note: the Year for Temperature Variation slider should only be used when you select the GlobalLandTemperaturesByCountry dataset.

Calculator(Yiquan)

Temperature Trend

  • Dataset Selection

You can choose global temperature or global land temperature by country to analyze the overall global temperature trend or temperature trend by country.

  • Type Selection

You can analyze either yearly average temperature or monthly average temperature trend.

When you choose global temperature dataset, the graphs will display properly for analysis.


Temperature Variation Map by Country

Temperature Variation Map by Country

When you choose global land temperature by country dataset and want to compare temperature trend among different countries, the graphs will look narrow and you should choose either year or month type. And if you select month, select fewer month using Month slider can make the graphs look even better.


Temperature Variation Map by Country

Temperature Variation Map by Country

  • Confidence Interval

You can choose to display confidence interval around smooth.


Temperature Variation Map by Country

Temperature Variation Map by Country